9.41am: Tony Blair brought us the concept of the "monthly press conference" and Gordon Brown agreed to carry on with the convention, although more recently he seems to have lost his enthusiasm for them and the adjective "monthly" doesn't always seem appropriate.

David Cameron, by contrast, is on a roll at the moment and he seems to relish any media exposure. He's holding his monthly press conference today at 10.15am at St Stephen's Club, from where I'll be blogging it live.

From what I've heard so far, it does not seem to go beyond what the IFS have been saying about government spending plans, but, as George Osborne pointed out with great delight on the Today programme this morning, the internal Treasury assumptions are very hard to square with what Gordon Brown was saying in the House of Commons earlier this year. (It was helpful of Lord Mandelson to encourage us to dig out the quotes on Monday.)

As I write, the Tories still have not released the leaked document (rule number 1 of political spin - journalists LOVE leaked documents) but, with luck, we'll get it at the press conference. Cameron is going to want to squeeze this for all it's worth.

10.23am: I'm at St Stephen's Club and the Tories have just handed out the fabled leaked document, accompanied by a press notice headlined: "Labour's 100% lies about 10% cuts".

Cameron is here. He wants to talk about the party and policy.

Starting with the party, he says the volume of interest in becoming a candidate has been "overwhelming" since he reopened the list four months ago. Around 70 new candidates have been put on the list.

10.27am: He also mentions Chloe Smith's victory in the byelection in Norwich North and the open primary in Totnes.Holding an open primary was proof that he is changing the party.

If the Tories win the election, the number of women in the parliamenary party will treble, rising to about 70, and the number of ethnic minority Tory MPs will increase six-fold, to about 12. But that's still not enough.

Onto the economy now; Cameron says that for the government to say the Tories opposed action to take Britain out of the recession is "transparent nonsense".

Proposed Tory support for business would have made the recession "shorter and shallower".

Cameron says the government's mortgage rescue scheme has been taken up by just 15 families. Other programmes have had minimal effect too, he says.

Moving onto the fiscal stimulus, he says it was "poorly targeted". The VAT cut was a mistake, and "all the major retailers" agree, he claims.

10.31am: Cameron says that when Brown says the Tories opposed moves to help Britain out of the recession, he is trying to "rewrite history".

Cameron says that Brown also tried to rewrite history by saying that he never claimed the election would be a choice between Tory cuts and Labour investment.

But Brown did say this, Cameron insists. (The Tories have given us a briefing note with quotes to back this up.)

The document released today shows that Brown was not being honest, he says.

Questions. Nick Robinson goes first. Are the Tories being honest about their plans?

"We are saying public spending needs to be cut," Cameron says. "We are being open about the need for this to be done."

10.34am: Talking about the Tory approach, he says he has taken things in stages: firstly, abandoning his commitment to Labour's spending plans; secondly, calling for cuts; thirdly, identifying areas for cuts.

Cameron says he has identified some things already - in a speech recently about the cost of politics - and will be saying more.

Cathy Newman from Channel 4 asks if he will consider a freeze on public sector pay.

Cameron says Osborne gave a measured answer to a measured question and that it is hard to find what he said in the Times story.

So he's going to share it with us. Osborne was making the point that it is difficult to make decisions about cutting defence programmes when the opposition does not know what penalty the MoD would pay for cancelling those projects.

George Pascoe Watson asks if Cameron is calling Brown a liar, and why he is not going to cut international develoment spending.

Cameron says the words are there. Brown has to explain himself. But Cameron does not rise to the bait and use the L-word.

On aid, Cameron says he thinks Britain should withdraw aid to China because it is becoming richer.

10.40am: India is different. (GPW asked about India.) In principle, aid should go to the poorest countries.

As for not cutting the budget, that's because Britain is a generous, outward-looking country. It's about Britain's character as a country.

Frances Elliott from the Times asks if Cameron has any advice for defence firms thinking of signing contracts with the Labour government, and how soon he would repay debt.

Cameron says his advice to defence contractors would be not to believe everything they read in the Times. That causes a stir.

10.46am: If Rule number 1 of political spin is about leaked documents (see my earlier post), rule number 2 in the New Labour age was never criticise a Murdoch newspaper. Cameron seems to sense this, and concedes that the Osborne quote was in the Times story, just buried.

On debt, Cameron says he does not believe in shadow budgets.

Adam Boulton from Sky asks if the Tories would abide by the figures in the Treasury documents. And does he agree with the proposals from Iain Duncan Smith's thinktank about benefit reform.

Cameron says he does not accept the starting point behind the government's figures.

On the IDS report, Cameron says that it is "very interesting" and that he will study it carefully. He says it shows that the creative thinking in British politics is now coming from the centreright.

10.50am: Asked about spending again, Cameron says the government is planning to spend £63bn in debt interest in 2013-14. That's more than is spent on policing and schools combined, he says.

The government has been guilty of "shiftyness". Even when Brown talked about cuts yesterday, that came after hours of obfuscation. (Cameron stumbles over the word.)

In response to a question from Andy Bell at Channel Five, Cameron runs us through his arguments with Brown over spending. He says he has gone "way further down the path" of acknowledging the need for cuts than the government.

10.55am: My colleague Nick Watt says that Cameron promised last week to decrease the deficit faster than the government. Doesn't that mean that he would cut spending by more than 9.3%?

Cameron jokes about Nick paying such close attention to his speeches.

He says that, if you started cutting spending earlier, as the Tories propose, then there would not be so much to cut.

But he says his view is clear. "You've got to be straight with people." There will have to be cuts.

Joe Murphy from the Evening Standard asks if the document shows that Tories will have to rethink their plans. And what will he do if the Irish vote for Lisbon?

Cameron says Labour say he is "salivating" about spending cuts. That's not true. "There's no relish in doing this." But politics is about telling the people the truth.

On Ireland, he says no one should intervene in the Irish referendum. It's a decision for the Irish.

Several countries have yet to ratify the Lisbon treaty. Until they have done that, the Conservative party will remain committed to a referendum, with a view to withdrawing the articles of ratification following a no vote.

10.59am: Asked about unemployment and spending (again), Cameron says the unemployment figures are "depressing". He will have more to say about getting people into training.

On defence, he says "there's no area that is exempt from the need to cut spending". Everything has to be subject to a value for money test.

But there does need to be a strategic defence review. The fact that there has not been a defence review since 9/11 is "an extraordinary indictment of this government".

David Grossman from Newsnight asks if Cameron believes debt should be below 40% of GDP - Brown's "golden rule".

Cameron says the golden rule did not work. The Tories have plans for an Office for Budget Responsibility and would try to use that to balance the national finances. He does not commit to 40% (which is also a target if Britain ever wants to join the euro, I seem to remember).

And that's it. Cameron apologises for winding up early, but he says he's been told that we need to get to Downing Street for the 11am briefing.

11.15am:Instant summary

Cameron accuses Brown of dishonesty: After Osborne set this story up with his 8.30am Today programme interview, and Cameron's role this morning was just to give it an extra bit of welly with some extra quotes.

But, interesting, he did not go as far as to accuse Brown of lying (although what the distinction is between lying and being dishonest, I'm not sure).

During the 2005 election campaign Michael Howard accused Tony Blair of lying, and there is some evidence that that backfired.

Tory spending plans: Unless I missed something, we did not learn anything new at all. Nick Robinson suggested that the Tories were not being honest, because they are not telling us about their plans.

Cameron's response can be summarised as: (1) at least we're better than the other lot, because we're talking about cuts and (2) we'll get back to you later with the details.

New Tory candidates: I misunderstood the figures that Cameron mentioned at the start, but ConservativeHome's Jonathan Isaby has just explained them to me properly.

After Cameron said he was re-opening the candidates' list four months ago, around 4,000 people expressed an interest. Around 200 took the application process far enough to be considered by the party's candidates board, and 70 of them have "passed" and made it onto the list. Another 100 are still waiting to hear their applications considered by the board.

Iain Duncan Smith's plans: I have not read the IDS benefit proposals closely but I got the impression from what Cameron was saying that they will not become party policy.

He was polite about them, but, if he wanted, he could have chosen to embrace them fully. He didn't.